Page 13

Chapter

Twelve

DAGHEL

I t takes all my strength of will to remain still behind the throne as Vorn holds court. While the prince permitted me two days to get my mate settled, it was hardly enough time. She is slowly unwinding, especially after the first night spent sleeping comfortably between us. Trust will be hard won, as I am certain that she bears many scars that she does not speak of, but her laughter is coming a little more easily and she is starting to open up more, though she has not ventured out of the palace yet. Nevertheless, when Gwen brought the dark blue gown made by one of the village seamstresses, Anya did not hesitate to dress herself to accompany me to the throne room despite Drisk’s grumbled protests.

I glance at her, a warmth filling my chest, chasing away the ice that has accumulated over a lifetime. Anya is a true picture of beauty as she stands proudly, her face impressively impassive as her gaze moves along the gathered males and their mates. She reveals nothing of her inner thoughts, and even her scent has a mellow warmth to it, betraying nothing as well. Her gaze shifts and slides to meet mine, and I can see the faint downward pull of her mouth in silent commentary of the meeting. I grunt quietly in agreement, keeping the volume low and just for her ears.

Vorn is in fine form making a complete ass of himself as the males flaunt their mates and brag of their exploits without the slightest regard for the flinches of discomfort or anger on their faces. And this is the state that the Cold Fang Clan has come to—a disgrace.

“Perhaps you can enlighten us, Daghel,” Vorn booms, drawing my cool regard directly to him. As I have not been paying any attention to their ridiculous conversation, I merely arch an eyebrow in silent inquiry, drawing a chuckle from the male and all others gathered within the room. “Since you and Drisk have had your female skewered upon your pricks these last couple of days, perhaps you can enlighten us as to when you think you might expect a pup from her?” Vorn leers at Anya as he turns in his throne, his weight leaning against its arm. “Or whether we might expect the pup to be an orc or wyvern. They say that the odds favor whoever breeds her more soundly and repeatedly.”

“I certainly didn’t think we would be spared from hearing her screams while you and that foul-tempered creature mounted her,” Ajek remarks with a smirk before draining the contents of his cup, rousing the laughter of the surrounding males.

Kael snickers into his cup and directs a particularly nasty smile toward my female, making my fists clench. “Daghel probably gagged her with his prick down her throat to keep the bitch silent.”

“I, for one, would enjoy listening to her squeal while pierced on their cocks.” Mattik, a heavily tattooed male who just recently returned from scouting, comments and squeezes meaningfully between his legs.

I contemplate the best way to remove the member when another round of laughter fills the room, and my mouth sets into a frown. Mattik. A shame that something larger failed to eat him while he was scouting. Perhaps I should let Drisk satisfy his appetite… just once. I am seriously entertaining the idea when my mate’s cool voice cuts through my gathering anger, dampening it as she replies to their collective impertinence.

“The joke is on you then,” she replies. “As it happens, I find pain to be the most profound aphrodisiac, so you would have had to listen closely to hear the moans. And seeing how you clearly can’t even pay enough attention to your own mates’ pleasure, I’m not the least bit shocked that you missed it.”

The laughter falls silent as the males turn reproachful looks at my mate before turning suspicious glowers toward the females kneeling at their feet with their heads bowed. Anya is not the least bit bothered by their overt hostility but smirks at them as her arms cross in front of her chest, the blue fabric of her gown flattering every delicate curve of her body. The sight of her makes my mouth water despite the fact that she’s wearing more now than she has over the last few days. Given the state of her bloodied and torn dress, Anya has been wearing little more than a long woolen chemise within our rookery. And yet this female is pure temptation, no matter how she is attired.

Vorn’s laughter breaks the strained silence, and he slaps the throne’s arm a little too jovially and with a little too much force so that the rings on his hand strike the stone clamorously, echoing through the chamber. I glance suspiciously at him from the corner of my eye but quickly look away before anyone notices. I know that he will find a way to make me compensate him for this embarrassment. My lips twitch faintly. Let him try.

“Daghel’s mate is clearly something very special,” he chuckles, and his eyes rove over my mate, his long tongue sliding over his tusks. “It is funny that I do not scent you or your wyvern on her, but some humans take a bit more time to mark. And the healer does report that she asks for bathing water to be melted from the snow every day. I would discourage it if I were you if you do not want another male attempting to mount her.”

“I imagine that another male would prefer to keep his prick attached to his body,” I reply coldly, and this time, the prince’s smile definitely slips as his eyes glitter angrily at me.

“Naturally,” he rumbles and turns away from me to address the males seated on their large lounging benches in front of him. “And we shall end our meeting on that note. Return home in peace.” He rises from his throne and steps down from it. He does not make any move to depart, however, but glances at me over his shoulder as I gather Anya to my side and prepare to leave. “A moment, if you will, Daghel.”

A desire to rip his guts through his stomach and gnaw upon his tender internal organs claws deeply through my belly. I have no excuse to offer Anya for this feeling as Vorn is very much another orc, and yet my instinctive impulses that see him as nothing more than a fattened hog to slaughter are something I feel no shame for.

My female is truly mating herself to a monster, but I cannot pity her, nor can I let her go. She will be a monster’s mate in every way and will watch on as I feast on those who subdue us and the vulnerable within the clan.

Turning toward him, I incline my head in acknowledgment and wait for him to speak. He peers at him as he shoos away his females. They leave in a flurry of whispers and giggles as he picks up a rag and wipes the grease from his meal off his claws. All the while, his eyes move over me speculatively.

“I hope that I did not bring you into my innermost council just to endure your threats, Daghel. Is this the behavior I should expect from you?”

“It was not a personal threat. I was merely responding to an insinuation of what someone might do against my mate. I did not consider it inappropriate or a reflection of you,” I reply.

Vorn eyes me for a moment longer, his hand dropping to brush idly over his sword hanging from the throne, but then he chuckles as he casts his rag aside. “Quite so. I, of course, would never permit such a thing to happen within the palace. The advice was meant more broadly. I do think your warning, however, will be an effective discouragement.”

I incline my head again as if accepting what praise he offers, despite biting back my sneer. He watches me and then nods as he turns away.

“That is all for now, Daghel. Do try to make your female scream. And consider my words about prohibiting baths. It will discourage talk among your brethren.”

They are not my brethren. They are mangled, rotting filth beneath my boots, but I give Vorn a small bow as the male exits with all the expected pomp. It is only when he is gone that my hand goes to Anya’s elbow to guide her toward our rookery.

“He is absolutely disgusting,” Anya mutters, her nose wrinkling as she walks at an unhurried pace at my side.

I grunt in agreement, but a feeling of pride awakens further within me, and I give her a sly smile. My female is not only astute and possessing considerable dignity, but she has great control of herself, expertly fooling those around her. Much of that is because of her insistence on practice with us these last few days so that she would not be an open book to the rest of the clan, but it speaks volumes of the sort of female that will be at my side in the years to come. And I, for one, cannot wait to see her bloom fully into her full power.

Still, an uncertainty weighs heavily on me that I must speak upon. “Your disgust… is it weighed the most heavily against the thought of being mounted and bred?”

Her eyebrows go up but then immediately beetle as she considers my question. “In a way. Though it was more because he thought that he had some special privilege to speak on and jest about something so private. It is what you expect to see in the Pits of Zyl.” I give her a confused look, and she smiles apologetically. “The Pits are the lowest levels of the city where the foulest thieves and murderers gather.”

I mull over her words as we ascend to our rookery in silence. There is not much that I am willing to speak of in the corridors. Vorn is unworthy—a blight and stain upon the Fang Peaks that needed to be dealt with—but he is not without his supporters. And in the long halls of the palace, it is far too easy to be overheard.

“Vorn does not speak with the authority or dignity of the Cold Fang throne,” I assure her once we are secure behind the impenetrable weight of our rookery door. If nothing else, the individual rookeries are well protected against attempts at spying. “I consider him less than even the males of your Pit, because his ambitions are fed and bought by nothing more than promises that fuel the hands of his followers. He undertakes nothing himself and accomplishes nothing other than being a festering pestilence within this clan and upon the throne.”

Anya stares at me through my heavily growled outburst, her lips pursing in a silent whistle of appreciation that sends a tiny hum of pleasure deep within me. “Tell me how you really feel,” she teases, and I huff at the joke.

“More than that, he is not a gathol, and the matters of the gathols are nothing more than a joke to him and his followers. Something which Ajek encourages so that he is not held to the laws regarding gathol bonds.”

“I don’t follow,” she murmurs, her brow furrowing once more.

I brush a claw gently across the crease between her eyebrows until they relax and I smile faintly down at her. “In the old traditions, the gathols are the warriors and hunters because we are unconstrained by the mountain passes because of our bonds with our wyverns. The gathols are a necessity for the clan, and so there have long been many laws that protect both the orcs and wyverns within a gathol bond—something which Ajek refuses to take part in. And because of Vorn, he is permitted to. Vorn and his ilk have cast much of this aside, making us merely a part of an attack team designed to carry other males down to raid. Males he considers more worthy to capture mates and wealth,” I add.

Anya’s brows fly up in sudden comprehension. “The male on the train!”

I nod grimly. “Verkol is another male pledged to him but not of his inner circle, so you did not see him tonight. It is guaranteed that those in attendance will share news with their underlings, including him.”

“So the gathol—the orc and wyvern, ah, teams—you are being pushed aside.”

“And pushing our females out of their positions of honor since they have always flown with us since time immemorial,” I add. “Only a gathol’s mate can be trusted to fly with the wyvern if the orc of the pair must fight separately.”

A frown of confusion mars her lips. “But I don’t understand… How did anything about the gathols and their females even enter the conversation?”

“Because he spoke of Drisk breeding you,” I remind her. “He may have spoken of it in jest, as did the others, but it is careless and cruel when they know that being taken by a wyvern is always shocking to the humans when they join with gathols. It is something that Drisk and I have not yet mentioned because our priority was to help you become comfortable with us. The tactless way Vorn and his males handled it was not what I wanted.”

“Are you telling me that he was serious? They were serious?” She glances at me with amused disbelief. “You expect me to take a wyvern’s cock?” A soft snort of laughter escapes her when I again incline my head in affirmation, bringing a smile to my lips. “You first… and I get to watch.”

I take her hand in mine and gently brush my tusks and lips over the back of it—the highest sign of affection from Cold Mountain orcs—and smile down at her. “I consider it an honor to initiate you into the pleasures.”